


Darcy is the New Steve

by ChrissiHR



Series: Everyday Heroes [4]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom, Thor - All Media Types
Genre: 2016 US Presidential Election, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Awesome Jane Foster, Bullying, Darcy and Jane are BAMF BFFs, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other, Rated M for the Author's Abiding Love of the Word "Fuck", Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000, Wordcount: 100-2.000, Wordcount: Over 1.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 07:35:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8524192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChrissiHR/pseuds/ChrissiHR
Summary: Everyday Heroes: Darcy & Jane, Defenders of New YorkBucky stalked into the infirmary, sticky and dripping sweat from the workout Jarvis interrupted with the news that Darcy used her panic button and had already reported to the medical ward accompanied by her security detail. Vibrating with worry, he shrugged off a pair of protesting nurses as he entered Exam Room 1 at Avengers Tower and took in the scene awaiting him.At the end of a plush, Potts-sanctioned hospital bed sat his best girl, surrounded by Dr. Cho, Thor, Foster, and their dumbass third, Steve. Her glasses lay on the side table in a mangled heap. His breath hitched at the sight of the left side of her face.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm American and I'm having a very difficult week. To the handful of amazing Canadian, Brit, and Aussie Darcyland friends I've made on tumblr recently, thank you for listening. You've been awesome. I needed to write, but being creative is a bit difficult. Bear with me and I'll do what I can to make all of it right again someday.

Bucky stalked into the infirmary, sticky and dripping sweat from the workout Jarvis interrupted with the news that Darcy used her panic button and had already reported to the medical ward accompanied by her security detail. Vibrating with worry, he shrugged off a pair of protesting nurses as he entered Exam Room 1 at Avengers Tower and took in the scene awaiting him.

At the end of a plush, Potts-sanctioned hospital bed sat his best girl, surrounded by Dr. Cho, Thor, Foster, and their dumbass third, Steve. Her glasses lay on the side table in a mangled heap. His breath hitched at the sight of the left side of her face. Florid and mottled, an enormous bruise darkened rapidly with each passing moment. The vicious blue-black mark stretched from brow to jaw, her face a ruined mess of blood, matted hair stuck to her temple. The skin over her orbital bone was split, too. Swollen and red, a long half-circle cut scabbed over from eyebrow to cheek. Blood he wasn't entirely sure was all hers speckled her favorite grey MIT sweatshirt.

“What happened to you?” Bucky growled.

“Nothing I regret.” Darcy crossed her arms, stubborn as hell and not the least bit cowed by his anger, but her face fell just as quickly when she hissed in pain. She shifted and winced, and he wondered how many unseen injuries Dr. Cho didn't even know about yet.

The team doctor sighed and withdrew, clicking off the pen-sized device she used in lieu of needle and thread when a patient required stitches.

“I thought you said it was going to be a peaceful protest—a goddamned sit-in, Darce!” he snarled, but the gentle touch of his fingers belied his words and he knew it. Laying his cybernetic hand at the base of her throat, he knelt on the floor between her legs, reassuring himself through the arm’s sensors and the steady rise and fall of her breath that her vitals were as they should be.

Feeling like a worthless bystander once again as the one he loved took a beating for some new, unnamed injustice, he tipped her chin up and she squared her stubborn-ass jaw, just like a certain punk they both loved against all reason. Bucky sighed. “Why do you two always come home bloody? And you—”

He punched a chuckling Steve square in the shoulder and sent his ass tumbling to the floor. “I sent you along to keep her safe!”

Shaking his head, Steve raised his hands in surrender. “I had no idea what went down until I got a courtesy call requesting my presence at the underground Stark terminal at Fifth and Central to pick up this crew from an NYPD holding room. It’s like this,” he explained, climbing back onto the bed to wrap an arm around their girl’s waist. “We got separated when things turned at the sit-in. It looked like it was going south fast, so I ordered Jones and Reese to get her and Dr. Foster back to the tower. They took the subway while Thor, Barton, and I stayed behind to help keep the peace until the police arrived at the site of the protest. Last I knew, everyone was fine. Then, my phone rang.”

From the doorway, Reese acknowledged the annoyed flicker in the soldier’s gaze, offering a simple sitrep for the time being, “We were walking a standard satellite perimeter between scheduled trains at the subway station when a fight broke out between another pair of students from the sit-in. One of them had a weapon. We were securing the scene and radioing NYPD, no more than thirty paces away when they hit their buttons and all hell broke loose. Miss Lewis and Dr. Foster both pressed their panic buttons immediately, when they realized another hostile altercation was in progress. It happened very fast.”

Foster’s hands were shaking when Bucky’s attention turned on the petite doctor, looking for more. Her knuckles were scraped raw, forearms gouged with deep welts, like she’d been brawling, too. When she squared her jaw, Bucky threw in the fucking towel.

Because why? Why was he cursed to spend a lifetime riding herd on these do-gooders always getting their faces bashed in?!

“There was a man on the subway platform,” her voice shook, “harassing a woman in a hijab while everyone else was watching the other protesters fighting. She had a baby in a carrier and a little boy. He wouldn’t stay in his stroller because the basket full of groceries underneath made his seat uncomfortable. Kids are— They make noise. It happens, but this one guy… She wasn’t doing _anything_ wrong and, suddenly, this huge guy was in her face, screaming at her to shut up her kids or he’d do it for her. He was shouting all these horrible insults and then he grabbed her elbow and started pushing her towards the edge of the platform, threatening her, telling her he knew how to deal with her kind. She was afraid. Her kids were terrified. Nobody else even _looked_  at her.” Foster shook her head, peering at Bucky from beneath lashes coated in tears. “We couldn’t just stand by and do nothing, James.”

He closed his eyes, imagining all too easily the scene as all its horrible possibilities played out in his mind’s eye. His hand pressed a little harder against Darcy’s sternum as he dropped his shoulders, head hung low and pressed against her knee. Taking a few deep breaths, he finally relaxed at the familiar feel of Darcy’s warm hand hugging his closer to her heart to press between her breasts, knowing he needed time and space to work through his anxiety and reassure himself she was okay.

When he opened his eyes and looked up again, Darcy let go for a moment to tuck the doctor’s trembling right hand back into the basin of regenerative goo they were sharing. For the first time since he arrived, he noticed Darcy’s knuckles. They were stiff and bloodied like the useless, aching talons Rogers used to drag home, bent and beaten to a pulp after some injustice needed righting back in their B.C. Brooklyn days.

“And this?” he asked, lifting her free hand to his lips to press kisses to each of her knuckles. “Did you need to be a hero, too?”

She sighed, but smiled without apology, cradling his jaw. “How many times do I have to tell you, Buck? I don’t like bullies.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, you might want to check out my other 2016 Election reaction fic, too: [Home is Wherever You Are](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10768065)
> 
> You can also hit me up on tumblr, if you like @ <https://chrissihr.tumblr.com/>


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